You may remember us mentioning the latest “Prometheus”-filled Empire magazine recently, the one that coined Noomi Rapace “The New Ripley.” Well it looks as if now that the issue is hitting newsstands it includes quite a bit of juicy information regarding Ridley Scott’s promising summer blockbuster.

Scott mentioned back at Comic-Con that he was planning to create PG-13 and R-rated cuts of the film, which has become the norm for the filmmaker, and let Fox make the decision as to which is the proper cut to release. Scott had the following to tell Empire regarding the outcome of the film’s rating: “Right now I don’t know where we are. The question is, do you go for the PG-13, or do you go for what it should be, which is R? Financially it makes quite a difference, or the risk makes quite a difference, and yet you also have to apply the question — if you soften it, will you financially suffer?” said Scott. “As opposed to just going for the throat and gambling. Essentially, it’s kinda R. The little bastards will still get in anyway, so what’s the difference? It’s not just about blood, it’s about ideas that are very stressful. I’m not an idiot, but I’ll do everything I can to get the most aggressive film I can.”

It’s clear that Scott favors a hard R-rating, and we can’t say we disagree with his yearning for a ferocious gamble, especially since all “Alien” films except “Alien Vs. Predator” went R. Since we haven’t actually seen the film, it’s hard to tell if a PG-13 would soften the blow of what’s looking to be a hard-hitting blast of sci-fi action, but we can understand the financial stress it could be putting Fox under. It’s already still unknown if “Prometheus” has stirred interest outside the core fanbase for the movie, and slapping an R on a sci-film (one of the toughest sells at the box office), with few major league stars could be a risk the studio doesn’t want to take.

Regardless of rating, we’ll be there on opening day. Here are some new images from the film from pages of the magazine. [Empire via /Film]